So on Monday for Memorial Day while everyone was at the beach, pool, outside, enjoying the sunshine, etc.... my sister and I went to see Bridesmaids. We've been dying to see it and if you go during the day it is only $6.50 to see a movie in Murfreesboro (it is 10 dollars or more to see a movie in Nashville... LAME!) So we trekked to the movie theatre. Bridesmaids was HILARIOUS. Raunchy, witty, and fabulous. Next on my list to see is Hangover 2. I am just on a raunchy movie roll this week!
Anyway, I'm off topic. I say all of that because we got to the movie about 30 minutes early and there just happens to be a fabulous THRIFT STORE next to the movie theatre! So naturally I drug my unwilling sister into it. There were SO MANY wonderful things!!! I ended up walking away with a lamp base, an antique yellow bottle (sounds awful I know but it is cute!), and some lavender striped fabric. I bought the lamp base because it had an amazing shape and I saw so much potential in it! Ideas just reeled in my head! I just had to transform this lamp! So I did just that. It was a pretty cheap project and took about 2 hours. Here are my before and after pictures:
This is my before picture. Look at that amazing shape the lamp had!!! I know, the wood is AWFUL. That's why I decided to transform it!
...and here is the after! I'm pretty much obsessed with it! (And you can see the antique yellow bottle next to the lamp that I also bought at the thrift store... cute, right?)
Once I got the lamp home I laid down some newspaper and got to work! Here is my tutorial on how I transformed my lamp (even though it was not difficult at all!):
- I first sanded down the lamp. Since it was "wood", I felt this was necessary.
- Then I taped off the power cord and other parts of the lamp I didn't want to paint (just to be safe).
- I then painted 2 coats of primer onto the lamp. I'm not really sure if I needed to do this or not but it did help the paint go on better.
- Next I painted the lamp with 2 coats of the teal paint, let it dry, and it was done!
The lamp base was honestly the easiest part of the whole project. That lamp shade is what gave me the hardest time! I went back and forth on what to do with it. I finally decided to just hot glue scrapbook paper to it. Not sure how long this will last because I am not completely in love with the shade but it is good enough for now! FUTURE REFERENCE: If you are recovering a lamp shade, DO NOT get one with pleats. If you can, purchase a cheap drum shaped lamp shade. It will make your life so much easier and it is so much easier to recover! The pleated lamp shade I bought was so hard to get the wrinkles out of the paper and I ended up giving up and just leaving a lot of the wrinkles and bubbles (although you cannot really tell). The lamp shade was a khaki color to begin with so I just bought a khaki print scrapbook paper and put it in between the pleats with hot glue. Cheap, cheap way to transform a lamp shade but I had a hard time with it.
Overall, I am very happy with how the project turned out! My sister now wants my lamp because her room is teal, khaki, and light pink and my lamp is teal and khaki (funny how she wants it now but didn't want to go with me to the thrift store :) hehe).
Sadly, this project was not free. BUT it was pretty cheap!!! The lamp base at the thrift store was $2.50, the lamp shade was $3.99 at Ross, and the paper for the lamp shade was $1.30 at Hobby Lobby. I already had the teal paint, primer, hot glue, and paint brushes at home. So this lamp totaled $7.79. Not bad at all!!!
So if you are bored and are wanting to transform something, check the thrift store! There are always great cheap finds if you just look :) Good night everyone!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment